Tenacious D Replace Beasties at Outside Lands

Jack Black talks about the comedy-rock duo's closing night set at the San Francisco festival.

San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival has confirmed Tenacious D as its new headliner on August 30.The comedy duo of Jack Black and Kyle Gass replace the Beastie Boys, who dropped out two weeks ago due to Adam Yauch’s battle with cancer.

“If there are any dogs barking on the 30th, that’s just them sensing the earthquake of rock that is coming,” said Jack Black in a press conference this afternoon. “I’m seriously afraid for California. There’s so much build-up that when we let loose that it may shake the foundations of the San Andreas fault line.When that crack in the earth happens, are you going with America or are you going to jump on California?”

Tenacious D join Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam as the festival’s headliners. M.I.A., Modest Mouse, the Mars Volta, Black Eyed Peas, Incubus, Silversun Pickups, the Dead Weather, Ween, and the National are among Outside Lands’ other big names.

The D have not performed publicly since November, but they have kept up on all the latest in concert-ready technology. “We will be Twittering all during the performance,” Black said.”We’ll try to keep it discrete, but we want people to be constantly updated on the setlist, banter, and the like.”

The band says they are excited to join the other bands on the bill, expressing particular interest in catching Ween and the Dead Weather. Modest Mouse, however, are a special favorite.”Modest Mouse and the D go way back,” Black said.”We go back to South by Southwest. Modest Mouse was all up our butt wanting to hang with us and were like, ‘Who are you chumps?’If I could go back in time I would crawl up their butts and create a rip in the space-butt continuum.”

If they do check out other sets though, they plan on doing it from the side of the stage.”I don’t think us going out in the crowd would be a good idea,” Gass said.”I think that we’d be torn apart limb from limb.”

Black gave some advice to fans coming to the festival.”Our shit is tight and it is well-honed and it is hot,” he said.”Bring some yogurt otherwise you might get burned.”